The University Committee on Research and Creative Activity (UCRCA) expands the capacity for research and creative activity at UNO.
The UCRCA makes funding recommendations to the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activity in a fair and transparent way. We support all areas, types and disciplines of research and creative activity by pre- and post- tenured faculty and graduate and undergraduate students at UNO.
Congratulations to the Fall 2025-2026 UCRCA Awardees!
| PI Name | Area | Title of Project |
|
Ahad Behboodi |
Biomechanics | Gaitron - A Humanoid Robot for Biomechanical Testing and Orthotics and Prosthetics Development |
|
Teresa Carmody |
School of the Arts | Sounding the Expanded Field |
| Zhigang Feng | Economics | Co-Learning with AI: Pilot Data Collection for Causal Analysis of Educational Outcomes |
| Ben Smith | Economics | The Impact of Expertise on Evaluator Bias and Variance |
An Interdisciplinary Committee
UCRCA members represent each of the colleges and various departments across the campus — and are recommended for appointment by the Faculty Senate to serve three-year terms. Funding for UCRCA comes from Facilities and Administrative Costs resulting from external grant and contract funding.
Learn more about our Charge.
| Faculty Information |
|---|
| 2025-2026 Proposal Guidelines |
| Evaluation Criteria |
| Final Report |
Sample documents are available upon written request to unoorca@unomaha.edu.
Important Reminders: UCRCA submission process
OPTIONAL (but encouraged) pre-submission to subcommittees for constructive feedback.
All faculty applying for full UCRCA awards are strongly encouraged to use the pre-submission process before applying through NuRamp.
Deadlines to send a pre-submission to the UCRCA subcommittee for review:
- Fall round: September 16, 2025 at 11:59PM
- Spring round: January 16, 2026 at 11:59PM
PIs must email their proposal in a PDF format directly to the subcommittee head before the deadline listed above. PIs should select the subcommittee they feel is closest to the category of their proposal.
Subcommittee Heads Information
DO NOT EMAIL YOUR FINAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION. THESE ARE FOR PRE-SUBMISSION FEEDBACK ONLY.
- For Arts and Humanities disciplines, email your proposal for feedback to BOTH Dr. Bharat Ranganathan (branganathan@unomaha.edu) AND Dr. Matthew Storie (mstorie@unomaha.edu)
- For STEM disciplines, email your proposal for feedback to Dr. George Grispos (ggrispos@unomaha.edu)
- For Social Science disciplines, email your proposal for feedback to Dr. Yanhui Zhao (yzhao@unomaha.edu)
For collaborative proposals across multiple disciplines that are not clearly one of the above categories, please email unoorca@unomaha.edu.
Feedback Timeline
Feedback to PIs will be provided by the subcommittee no less than two (2) weeks before the submission deadline (10/16 and 2/16). Proposals pre-submitted for feedback AFTER the deadlines listed above may not receive feedback before the full application deadline.
Deadlines
The UCRCA will open for submissions on January 5, 2026.
Spring UCRCA full proposals are due on February 16, 2025 at 11:59PM.
- The application for full proposals will open 30 days before the submission deadline.
- Faculty mini grant applications are due the first working day of each month, October 2025 - March 2026.
- The mini grant application will re-open one week after each monthly deadline.
Application
The application for UCRCA proposals may be found in NuRamp. You will need your NuID and password to log in.